The hilarious hijinks of the hash brown hoax hack

Canadians can rest easy this morning knowing that the political party currently governing their country has the same awesome level of security as, say, a tech giant like Sony. Early this morning, the Conservative Party of Canada’s official website (not, we should add, a Government of Canada site) was hacked, and a fake press release was posted to the front page. The headline blared, “Prime Minister Rushed to Hospital After Breakfast Incident,” above a press release stating that Stephen Harper was brought to Toronto General Hospital after he choked on a hash brown.

Here’s an example of the Conservatives’ staunch message discipline working against them. It’s likely nobody would’ve noticed the hack (really, how often do even Ottawa reporters check the Conservative website?)—except for the fact that some new Conservative MPs’ Twitter accounts are basically glorified robots that spew nothing but repeat press releases sent from HQ. Not to mention the tweets from MPs like Chris Alexander wishing the PM well on his recovery (that tweet has since been deleted).

The prime minister, for the record, did not choke on a piece of hash brown, and we imagine he’ll show up at Question Period this afternoon. In the meantime, we’re hoping the Conservatives store any credit card information from their donations page a bit more securely. And that they keep tasty breakfast treats away from their leader just to be safe.